


Meant It

by afteriwake



Series: afteriwake's 40th Birthday Celebration [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Fluff, Birthday Surprises, Crying Molly Hooper, Developing Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Injured Sherlock Holmes, Kissing, Laughing Molly Hooper, Love Confessions, POV Molly, POV Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Kissing, Sherlock Meant It, Surprise Kissing, Surprised Molly Hooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28941141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Both Molly and Sherlock get a surprise on the morning of her birthday.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Series: afteriwake's 40th Birthday Celebration [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122401
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Meant It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SimplyShelbs16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplyShelbs16/gifts).



> This is a treat for **SimplyShelbs16** , who gave me the prompt " _Sherlock tells Molly he meant it on her birthday!_ "

He was avoiding her.

Not that she blamed him; both John and Mycroft had come up to her in the days since The Call and told her the horrible things that Sherlock and Mycroft’s sister had put them through. She just wanted to hold Sherlock and tell him she was sorry for forcing him to say something he didn’t mean and she understood and it was all alright now, she would never hold those words against him...but he was avoiding her.

Just as well, she supposed.

It had been a bad day before he’d called. Toby had been sick, and in the back of her mind (now, at least), she wondered if it had been intentional. She had gotten a call that her request for time off to attend her brother’s wedding had been denied, and Meena had announced the night before she’d gotten engaged.

It had been a whirlwind of all of that before The Call, and when Sherlock had wanted her to say those words? If she was hurting, she at least wanted to hear a pretty lie before she opened her heart up one last time. He’d said it twice, but she assumed that wherever his sister had been she may not have heard him, so she spoke clearly, though quietly, to make sure she was heard, too.

And then he was gone.

And now he was avoiding her.

She woke up in bed and trudged to the toilet, determined to put on a smile today. It was her birthday, after all, a day of celebration. Meena had planned a party, and she’d arranged to give herself a spa day and to take John and Rosie to lunch as well. It was going to be a good day. She was _determined_ to make it a good day.

But the thump in her guest bedroom threatened to ruin it all. Just what she would need, a break-in.

She went and grabbed the cricket bat she kept by her bedroom door and went down the hall to the guest bedroom. It swung open and she instinctively swung the bat, catching Sherlock in the ribs. Hard, she might add; she hadn’t _meant_ to swing so hard, or she wouldn’t have if she had realized he’d let himself into the bolt hole he’d been forced in when she was dating Tom. “Oof!” he grunted, doubling over.

“Oh my God!” She dropped the cricket bat at his feet and then bent over, carefully feeling the area of impact to make sure she hadn’t broken any of his ribs.

“Not the welcome I’d hoped for,” he said, his voice laced with pain.

“Then you should have used the bloody front door and not snuck in like a thief,” she said. Nothing broken, but he was going to be sore for a bit.

Good. He deserved it for scaring her.

“It’s actually easier to break into your upstairs window than it is your front door. The locks Mycroft had installed are excellent.” He stood up and winced. “I wanted to...talk. About things.”

“Not the weather, I hope,” she said, straightening up as well and turning around to head back to her room to get her dressing gown. Here, now, with so little room between them and her in a camisole vest and pyjama shorts, she felt so naked.

“About us, actually.”

She froze. “Sherlock, we don’t have to, it’s alright,” she said, her sentence ending in a sigh. “I know you said it to get a response, John and Mycroft told me everything.”

“I destroyed your coffin with my bare hands because you got me to admit my deepest, buried feelings,” he said softly. 

There was space between them now, but he didn’t reach out to her, and she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. She could hardly believe that he actually meant those words. Why would he love her? Did he love her the way she’d loved him for so long, like an ache in the soul with no balm to soothe it? Or was it something else? Could she bear it? “Sherlock…”

“I love you, Molly. I love you for the things that matter and the things that don’t. I love the way you part your hair, I love the way you scrunch your nose when you laugh, I love the way you care for those you consider friends and family, and I love the fact that you saw me when no one else did, the man in me who could be better. I want to spend time with you, showing you that I love you as much as you’ve loved me. I just...started it out in a lousy way.”

“You certainly did,” she said softly, trying to hold back the tears and failing. No one had said anything like this before, not even Tom, and she’d planned on marrying him. She turned and looked up at Sherlock, and he stepped forward, wiping the tears away gently. “I...don’t know what to say.”

“Say you will give me a chance to prove to you that I meant it that day, and I mean it today, and I’ll mean it every day of the rest of our lives together.” She felt new tears sting the corners of her eyes and soon she was laughing and crying and pulling Sherlock’s head down to snog him properly and he was kissing her back and it all felt _right_ , for the first time in so long. When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers. “I love you, Molly.”

“I love you too, Sherlock.” She gave him another small, soft kiss and then wrapped her arms around his waist. He embraced her back, holding her tightly as though he never wanted to let her go.

“Happy birthday,” he said into her hair. “I hope this was a decent present?”

She laughed. “The best ever.” And she meant that, just like that. She meant every word.


End file.
